Board hears from zoning officer about Infiniti issues
By Catie Foertsch Community Reporter

Westborough - The Herb Chambers development team came to the Planning Board Aug. 13 to continue its quest for an Infiniti dealership at the corner of Route 9 and Otis Street. Zoning Enforcement Officer Joseph Inman attended the meeting to give his interpretation of several zoning issues, including parking and open space requirements.

The project is complicated because it requires that the existing Ford dealership be split into two lots. In addition, the parcel behind the Ford dealership, known as the Goodall property, would be developed at the same time as a service center for the Ford dealership. Because the plans call for Infiniti parking on the Goodall site, the Planning Board asked the Infiniti team to apply for permits for both sites at the same time.

Parking

Inman told the Planning Board that the town's zoning laws classify car dealerships as retail establishments, with a parking requirement of five spaces per 1,000 square feet of retail space. But, he said, the Planning Board had the authority to reduce that requirement if it believed that car dealerships require less parking than typical stores. The attorney for Herb Chambers, William Bloom of Bloom and Rosenfield, has made that same argument to the board to justify the Herb Chambers proposal, which calls for 78 percent of the customer parking required by zoning on the Infiniti site. On the Goodall site, the plan calls for 85 percent of the retail zoning requirement.

Inman also told the board that he does not believe that indoor parking bays for servicing vehicles count as parking spaces, as the Herb Chambers team had previously argued.

Chambers

open space

The Herb Chambers parcels are in the highway business district, which requires that 60 percent of a site be left as unpaved open space. But, the projects are re-developments, and the questions are whether the use is grandfathered and how much open space is thus required.

Inman told the board that the proposed Infiniti site is indeed grandfathered with its current total lot coverage. The issue, he said, is whether the proponents can fit the parking the Planning Board requires on the lot, given the 34,000 square foot size of the proposed building. Current zoning requires 176 spaces for employee and customer parking. The plan would create 138 spaces, or 78 percent of the requirement. Westborough zoning bylaws allow some off -site parking within 300 feet of the property, and the plan calls for 52 Infiniti spaces to be placed on the Goodall site.

Goodall open space

Regarding the Goodall site, Inman said his original opinion was that the owners would have to conform to current zoning and keep 60 percent of the area as open space. But, he said, he had done further research, including looking at old aerial photographs that showed that most of the site was used to store vehicles. He also found a 1982 inspection report that showed the site was "loaded with vehicles."

As a result, he said, his amended interpretation of the zoning requirements for the Goodall site was that 20 percent should be left as open space. The plan submitted by Herb Chambers meets that requirement.

The hearing was continued to Tuesday Sept. 25. Bloom pledged to bring his team in to work with Robbins in the interim so that the project might be finalized at that meeting.